Glam

I heard Microstoria before I ever heard Mouse on Mars. A friend had somehow acquired the Thrill Jockey 12" with ...

I heard Microstoria before I ever heard Mouse on Mars. A friend had somehow acquired the Thrill Jockey 12" with Microlab's "Endless Summer NAMM" b/w Oval's "Runtime Engine" Microstoria megamix, which was surprising because he didn't much care for experimental electronic music. Having no context at that time for this sort of thing, I didn't know what to make of it. But after I heard some Mouse on Mars and gradually became drawn into that world, I went back and gave Microstoria another listen, and then began looking for Jan St. Werner's solo project Lithops. When I finally bought everything I could find under all three names, I began to see the music of Jan St. Werner as existing along a spectrum, with the tuneful music he made with Andi Toma as Mouse on Mars at one end, the free-floating manipulations of his Markus Popp collaboration Microstoria on the other, and his own work as Lithops in the middle. And that's how it went for St. Werner's output generally, but one album was fixed at the fulcrum between St. Werner's abstract and pop interests: Mouse on Mars' Glam.

Glam's initial release was a vinyl-only limited edition, but now it's finally been reissued domestically on CD (there was a pricey Japanese import CD with the bonus tracks also included here). I listened to Glam constantly in '99 but hadn't put it on for a while now, so I was curious whether it was as great as I remembered. It is, for the most part. And it's particularly fun to hear now because it captures Mouse on Mars at such an interesting time. Though they've since distinguished themselves as a warped electronic pop group, Mouse on Mars were all over the place during the latter half of the 90s, working with everybody and experimenting like crazy. Atmospheric soundscaping was something they excelled at when so inclined, as evidenced by the abstract tracks they placed on compilations (most of which were collected on the equally fine Instrumentals album), and that's where their focus is through most of Glam.

As a collection of pieces initially constructed as sound cues, Glam sometimes feels like an album packed with brilliant but unfinished ideas. Three great albums could be made if the music hinted at here were extended and developed. For example, it would please me if the feedback drones refracted through a fine mist of distortion on "High Court Low Cut" lasted for fifteen minutes instead of just over three, and I think it's safe to say that if an instrumental on the My Bloody Valentine album that never was sounded this pretty it would have been worth the wait. The snarling, crunchy breaks of "Tiplet Metal Plate" hint at a dark and funky industrial road not taken, with far more groove than the cartoony noise tracks Mouse on Mars would later construct. And a good portion of the album's first half is fine 70s-sounding ambient, something Eno would have been proud to put his stamp on during his prime.

A couple tracks did find their way to other projects. "Mood Leck Backlash" is similar enough to Iaora Tahiti's "Gocard" to be considered an alternate version, and the unbelievably joyous sunburst pop instrumental "Glim", which closes this record, also finished out the Cache Coure Naif EP. Despite the patchwork nature of Glam, though, where not-quite-finished tracks in a number of different styles seem stitched together, it works as an album. Maybe I spent too many hours staring at the sleeve art (a good argument for keeping the vinyl), but the cover, a shot that might have been titled "Hyenas on the Savannah at Dusk", really captures the mood of Glam. It's a grainy video capture that diffuses the early evening light into finely textured particles, and the photograph is gripped with tension as it straddles boundaries between day and night, between the natural world and an electronic representation. Glam, absorbing influences from the vast musical world of all of Mouse on Mars, has a similar complexity.

Oh yeah, then there's the story of how the album came to be. By now anyone remotely interested in Mouse on Mars knows that Glam was originally recorded as a soundtrack for an awful Australian film called starring Tony "Who's the Boss?" Danza but was rejected outright by the producers as being too experimental. I haven't seen the film, but I think the producers probably knew what they were doing. It's impossible to imagine Danza's face onscreen as this music plays in the background. Still, I love the idea that Mouse on Mars approached scoring a straight-to-video piece of shit as if they were Popol Vuh working with Werner Herzog. Instead of tossing something off, getting paid, and going home, they holed up in St. Martin in The Streets and recorded some of their best music. Glam is the sound of two believers.